Donald Trump’s Memorial Day VA fact check plus ready for Mars claims

Donald Trump used Memorial Day to make some rather large but untrue claims, even stating that we’re not just ready to go to the moon again, but Mars. Both he and his Veterans Affairs secretary are now taking full credit for health care improvements that were made during the Barack Obama administration. Trump has gotten to if he can’t tear down what Obama created, he’ll just take them over.

Trump said he passed a
private-sector health care program, Veterans Choice, after failed attempts by
past presidents for the last “45 years.” That’s not true. The Choice program,
which allows veterans to see doctors outside the government-run VA system at
taxpayer expense, was first passed in 2014 under President Barack Obama.

Trump’s VA secretary,
Robert Wilkie, also is distorting the facts. Faulting previous “bad leadership”
at VA, Wilkie suggested it was his own efforts that improved waiting times at
VA medical centers and brought new offerings of same-day mental health service.
The problem: The study cited by Wilkie on wait times covers the period from
2014 to 2017, before Wilkie took the helm as VA secretary. Same-day mental
health services at VA were started during the Obama administration.

The half-truths and
exaggerations came in a week when selective accounting was a norm in Trump’s
rhetoric, extending into his trip to Japan, where he inflated the drop in the
U.S. unemployment rate for women.

A closer look at Trump’s latest round of facts:

VETERANS

TRUMP: “We passed VA Choice and VA Accountability to give our veterans the care
that they deserve and they have been trying to pass these things for 45 years.”
— Montoursville, Pennsylvania, rally on May 20.

THE FACTS: Wrong. Trump is not the first president in 45 years to get
Congress to pass Veterans Choice; Obama did it in the wake of a scandal at VA’s
medical center in Phoenix, where some veterans died while waiting months for
appointments. The program currently allows veterans to see doctors outside the
VA system if they must wait more than 30 days for an appointment or drive more
than 40 miles (65 kilometers) to a VA facility.

Trump did expand eligibility
for the program. Now, starting June 6, veterans are to have that option for a
private doctor if their VA wait is only 20 days (28 for specialty care) or
their drive is only 30 minutes.

Still, VA’s top health
official, Dr. Richard Stone, described the new program’s start to “almost be a
non-event” in testimony to Congress. That’s in part because wait times in the
private sector are typically longer than at VA. In 2018, 34 percent of all VA
appointments were with outside physicians, down from 36 percent in 2017.

Also key to the Choice
program’s success is an overhaul of VA’s electronic medical records to allow
seamless sharing of them with private physicians, a process expected to take up
to 10 years. Wilkie has said full implementation of the expanded Choice program
is “years” away.

VA SWITCH UP

WILKIE: “The first thing I did was change out the leadership at VA. … (The
president) also allowed me to change out leadership in the VA centers. If
someone wasn’t walking the post, getting to know the people who work for her or
him, or getting to know those veterans, they had to leave. And, as a result,
the Journal of the American Medical Association this year said that our waiting
times are now as good or better than any in the private sector.” — interview
Thursday with Fox News.

THE FACTS: It’s true that a study by the medical association came out
in January that found wait times at VA medical centers on average were better
than the private sector. But the improvement wasn’t a “result” of anything that
Wilkie did: The study involved a period largely covering the Obama
administration — and before Wilkie became acting VA secretary in late March
2018.

In fact, in a VA press
release in January announcing the study’s results, Wilkie credits the
department’s “concerted” effort to improve access to care “since 2014.”

It found that in 2014, the
average wait time at VA medical centers was 22.5 days, compared with 18.7 days
in the private sector, which was not statistically different. By 2017, the wait
time at VA improved to 17.7 days, while increasing to 29.8 days for private
doctors. Wait times at VA medical centers were shorter in all specialties
except orthopedics.

According to the study, the
number of patients seen yearly in VA increased slightly between 2014 and 2017,
to about 5.1 million. VA patient satisfaction also rose, according to patient
surveys cited in the study.

VA BAD LEADERSHIP

WILKIE: The VA “had suffered from bad leadership. And that’s a bipartisan
comment. And the second thing I had to do was make sure that as we approach our
veteran population that we make sure that they are at the center, their needs
are at the center of what we do … I think we’ve had it backwards at VA for
many years. … One of the things that we’re doing at VA is that we have
same-day mental health service. … It is huge.” — interview with Fox News.

THE FACTS: Same-day mental health service started at VA before Trump
took office in January 2017, let alone Wilkie.

VA’s effort to provide
same-day primary and mental-health care when medically necessary at every VA
medical center was publicized in April 2016 under the Obama administration. At
the time, David Shulkin was helping lead the effort as VA’s top health official.
By late 2016, the department’s blog announced that the goal of same-day mental
health services would be achieved by year’s end.

A Dec. 23, 2016, article
in the Harvard Business Review cites new same-day services at all VA hospitals
as evidence of notable progress at the department. Shulkin, who was then named
by Trump to be his VA secretary, told Congress in late January 2017 the
services already were fully in place.

Trump selected Wilkie to
be his VA secretary after firing Shulkin in March 2018 because of ethics
charges and internal rebellion at the department over the role of private care
for veterans. Trump’s initial replacement choice, White House doctor Ronny
Jackson, withdrew after allegations of workplace misconduct surfaced. While
Wilkie has been credited by both parties in Congress for bringing stability to
the department, the VA improvements he attributes to himself this past week are
misplaced.

TRADE

TRUMP: “You know, foolishly, some people said that the American taxpayer is
paying the tariffs of China. No, no, no — it’s not that way. They’re paying a
small percentage, but our country is taking in billions and billions of
dollars.”

THE FACTS: That’s not true. U.S. consumers and the public are primarily
if not entirely paying
the costs of the tariffs, as his chief economic adviser,
Larry Kudlow, has acknowledged. That’s how tariffs work: Importers pay the taxes and often pass on the
cost to consumers. The U.S. is not “taking in” billions from China as a result.

A sustained trade dispute
is not painless for China, either. Its goods become pricier and therefore less
competitive. But China
is not paying a tab to the U.S. treasury in this matter.

As Kudlow said,
accurately: “Both sides will suffer on this.” But in his view, “this is a risk
we should and can take.”

MARS

TRUMP: “Prime Minister Abe and I have agreed to dramatically expand our
nations’ cooperation in human space exploration. Japan will join our mission to
send U.S. astronauts to space. We’ll be going to the moon. We’ll be going to
Mars very soon.”

THE FACTS: Not very soon. The U.S. will almost certainly not be sending
humans to Mars in his presidency, even if he wins a second term.

The Trump administration has a
placed a priority on
the moon over Mars for human exploration (President Barack Obama favored Mars)
and hopes to accelerate NASA’s plan for returning people to the lunar surface.
It has asked Congress to approve enough money to make a moon mission possible
by 2024, instead 2028. But even if that happens, Mars would come years after
that. International space agencies have made aspirational statements about
possibly landing humans on Mars during the 2030s.

IRAN

TRUMP on Iran: “If you look at the deal that Biden and President Obama
signed, they would have access — free access — to nuclear weapons, where they
wouldn’t even be in violation, in just a very short period of time. What kind
of a deal is that?”

THE FACTS: That’s a misrepresentation of what
the deal required. Iran
would not have access to nuclear weapons capability in a “very short period”
without violating the terms of the 2015 accord. The U.S. withdrew from the
multinational agreement last year.

During the 15-year life of
most provisions of the deal, Iran’s capabilities were limited to a level where
it could not produce a nuclear bomb. Iran was thought to be only months away
from a bomb when the deal came into effect.

After 15 years, Iran could
have an array of advanced centrifuges ready to work, the limits on its
stockpile would be gone and, in theory, it could then throw itself into
producing highly enriched uranium. But nothing in the deal prevented the West
from trying to rein Iran in again with sanctions. The deal included a pledge by
Iran never to seek a nuclear weapon. In return, partners in the deal eased
sanctions on Iran.

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